White House: A report has revealed that crypto-asset technologies are overwhelmingly contributing to Green House Gas emissions, pollution, noise other local impacts. This has hindered the federal agency’s efforts to achieve net-zero carbon pollution consistent with U.S. climate commitments and goals.

The White House Office of Science and Technology report was a response to President Joe’s Biden’s executive order. The order illuminated the challenges and opportunities of crypto assets in relation to energy and climate change issues in the United States.

Key among the recommendations made by the team is for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Department of Energy (DOE), and other federal agencies to initiate a collective procedure with different states and the crypto firms. The aim is to grow active, evidence-based environmental performance standards for the responsible design, development, and use of environmentally responsible crypto-asset technologies.

According to the White House report:

Key recommendations in the report include ensuring energy reliability, obtaining personal information of crypto-asset miners and electric utilities. Such information will remain confidential, and will enable the feds to assess the energy and climate implications of crypto assets.

The crypto community argues that crypto mining can be a win for the environment. However, the White House’s report says more than 100 million new storage devices will be connected to the grid by 2040. They claim that will milk the energy-hungry country. They have tasked the EPA with revolutionizing the energy grid. The White House say this will enable a clean energy future and protect communities from pollution and climate change.

From 2018 to 2022, demand for electricity from global crypto assets grew fast, with estimates of electricity usage doubling to quadrupling by August 2022. The White House report has flagged between 120 and 240 billion kilowatt-hours per year, “a range that exceeds the total annual electricity usage of many individual countries, such as Argentina or Australia.” This is equivalent to 0.4% to 0.9% of annual global electricity usage.

The United States is estimated to host about a third of global crypto-asset operations, which currently consume about 0.9% to 1.7% of total U.S. electricity usage. This range of electricity usage is like all home computers or all residential lighting in the United States. The U.S. share of global mining from Bitcoin, the largest crypto asset, rose from 3.5% in 2020 to 38% today. U.S. electricity usage for crypto-asset mining, while still relatively small, tripling since January 2021.